


take me home

by perfectlystill



Category: Girl Meets World
Genre: F/M, background Riley/Lucas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-09
Updated: 2014-12-09
Packaged: 2018-02-28 18:32:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2742719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perfectlystill/pseuds/perfectlystill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lucas makes a habit of showing up outside Maya's window. It's not a big deal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	take me home

The first time Lucas goes to Maya's house he greets her at the window. It's Halloween, the sun barely set and the sky just black. He's with Farkle, who suggests the idea in the first place. Lucas thinks showing up outside her bedroom window is creepy, but Farkle just shrugs: "I do it all the time." Lucas squints at him, doesn't question the logic behind the response, and follows Farkle's lead. 

He's only there for a minute. Riley's sleeping over, and the girls get a decent scare. 

He and Farkle laugh about Maya and Riley's faces, the rubber of the masks soft between his fingers as Farkle looks to see if they got any Baby Ruths. They've got six. Farkle counts it as a success, and Lucas sees no reason to disagree. 

 

 

The moon's a sliver, and because they're keeping track of it in science class, Lucas knows it's waxing. 

His parents are fighting again. His mom's got her phone pressed against her ear as she paces the kitchen. Her voice is hoarse, cracking every few sentences, her vowels getting longer and longer. The bottoms of her oatmeal raisin cookies are burnt and Lucas grabs one on his way out the door, eats it in two bites. 

He doesn't know where he's going until he passes by the deli he and Farkle stopped at to get water on the way home from trick-or-treating. When Lucas arrives outside Maya's building, he looks up. He isn't sure he remembers exactly which window is hers, but he doesn't know her apartment number, so climbing up the fire escape steps seems like the only solution. His phone is heavy in his pocket, and he could text or call her -- just _ask_ , and if she was anyone else he probably would, but he doesn't know if she'd actually respond with anything other than sarcasm and suspicion if he did. 

He's off by a floor initially, which makes him feel awkward, but he doesn't come face-to-face with anyone, and no one on the street yells up at him. 

When he gets to Maya's room, he finds her sitting on the floor, math worksheet on her lap and textbook in front of her. Her hair's mussed as though she's been running her hand through it in frustration. She's got her bottom lip pulled between her teeth, pencil clenched between her fingers, and anger in the arch of her eyebrows. Lucas knocks on the window and Maya looks up slowly. 

Her face shifts when she sees him, and she takes her sweet time standing up and walking over before opening the window. "What'd are you doing here, Bonanza?"

He shrugs. "Don't know." She narrows her eyes, looks around him and down at the street before stepping back. "What?" he asks.

"I know Farkle wouldn't try to pull one over on me, but you," she pauses, shakes her head. "You're hiding something. And I swear to god if you're pranking me, I will get revenge."

"I'm not pranking you." He smiles, sweet as anything, and she rolls her eyes before moving aside. 

Climbing in through her window is kind of awkward, and he hits his elbow against the frame. 

Maya's room is cool, like the thermostat is set a few degrees lower than usual, and there's an old alarm clock with blocky red letters in the corner that reads 8:47.

"Are you just going to stand there?" she asks, arms crossed over her chest. "Because I'm a little busy."

Lucas looks down at the math worksheet lying on the floor. It's got track marks under half the questions, like her eraser isn't doing its job properly. "Want me to help?" he asks, already sitting down and bringing the worksheet closer. They're in different math periods, but they have the same teacher. "I did it this afternoon."

"Of course you did." She sighs, annoyed, before sitting down next to him. 

He walks her through the first question, explaining how to find the length of the triangle's third side. He'd been confused at first too, especially because a few weeks ago they'd learned to find the length using a different method his father said didn't make sense -- "It's a goddamn right triangle, Lucas. If the answer can't be found with the Pythagorean theorem, your teacher is teaching you wrong."

Maya's able to do the next one, and when she still can't figure out the answer to the last question, he does the problem himself, figuring out where she went wrong before pointing out her mistake. 

"Thanks," she says when she's finished, mouth turned up in a small but genuine smile. She slips the worksheet between the pages of her textbook and slams it shut with more force than necessary. "Now, tell me why you're here."

He prickles. She has bags under her eyes, but she's focused on him, just him, looking more serious than she ever has. Lucas doesn't like talking about his parents, his dad and how he knows when he gets home his mother will be crying, or will have already cried. He knows he'll feel guilty for leaving when he should be there for her, but he feels as tired as Maya looks. He presses her mouth into a thin line before lying: "I was just passing by on my way home from Farkle's and wanted to say hi."

She blinks, and he knows she doesn't buy it. She must understand, though, because she lets it go. 

 

 

Once is nothing, twice is a coincidence, and three times makes a pattern. 

Maya's hair is piled on top of her head, and she's wearing flannel pajama pants and a thin, white short-sleeved T-shirt. She doesn't seem to be doing anything. She's lying on the floor, arms and legs spread out. He knocks, and this time when she opens the window she says, "I'm really surprised you don't knock with shave-and-a-haircut."

"Two bits, ma'am." He tilts his imaginary hat at her, and she looks up at him, pleasantly annoyed. 

"You drive me nuts." She lets him in and resumes her position on the floor.

"What are you doing?" he asks. He looks down at her and she reaches her hand up and slaps his ankle. "Ow."

"Don't be a baby." She pats the spot next to her. 

Lucas shucks off his jacket, folding it carefully and placing it on Maya's bed before lying next to her. He stretches his legs out and flexes his toes. When he looks up at her ceiling, there are cracks and water stains, a few smooth, white spots, and something in the corner that looks like the remnants of a spider's web. "Maya?"

"What?"

"What are we doing?" He turns his head, presses his ear into the carpet and looks at her. Her hair brushes against his shoulder but he can't feel it through the cotton of his shirt. 

"It's pretty." She points up at the ceiling. "I used to hate it. I kept calling the landlord and asking him to fix it because it's probably a safety hazard. One day the spinster who lives up there is going to fall asleep and overflow her bathtub and her floor is going to fall through the ceiling or something. Granny's probably going to kill the family that lives below us the same way. But, anyway, I've been reading about abstract art and public art. And like, so much of it is junk. But I don't know. I think this looks cool."

Lucas turns his head, traces the way one crack spirals out. "It's kind of like finding shapes in the clouds. My mom and I used to do that all the time in Texas."

"Yeah," Maya says, her voice soft, heavy with something Lucas can't quite place. "Kind of like that."

"Over there." He taps Maya's arm with his elbow and points to a splotch. "Looks kind of like a pair of cowboy boots."

He likes the way she laughs, the way her eyes crinkle with it. "You're an idiot."

"No references to _Little House on the Prairie_? You're losing your edge."

She looks at him, face settled and content, the mascara she's started wearing smudging under her eyes. "It's not as fun when you do it on purpose." A beat. "And I'm not losing my edge."

She elbows him in the ribs with intention and he squirms away, laughing because it doesn't hurt and she probably doesn't mean it to. He does eventually call, "mercy," and even though she smirks proudly, he doesn't feel like he lost. 

 

 

It's snowing the first time he goes to Maya's building and the light to her bedroom window is off. He jogs up the fire escape stairs anyway, looks inside and knocks, waits a few minutes before he realizes she's not coming to let him in any time soon.

He shivers, curls his hands inside his jacket pockets and walks aimlessly around the city until his nose goes numb. 

 

 

"You know," she says, hands on her hips. "You're not doing the South very proud. You'd think a southern gentleman would use the door."

He quirks an eyebrow. "You want me to start using the door?"

She clenches her jaw before scrunching up her face and shaking her head. She stomps her foot, and Lucas finds it equal parts funny and cute. "God, you're the worst."

"Whatever you say." 

He's used to it now, the way he needs to bend his body to get through the window unscathed. He's used to the way she looks in her room, smaller than she does at school, when she's walking through the city or riding the subway. He doesn't know what it is about her bedroom that humanizes Maya, but he likes the side of her he sees here, like she's relaxed enough to let down some of her walls. 

She sits on the edge of her bed, swinging her legs out once. "Riley's trying to convince me to do the talent show with her."

"What's her talent?" Lucas pulls out the chair from Maya's desk, sets it across from her and sits down. 

"She doesn't know." Maya's eyes widen and she raises her eyebrows like she's seen some horrifying things in the past few days. "She hit me in the head with an orange trying to juggle. Her knock-knock jokes are terrible."

"Orange you glad I didn't say banana," Lucas offers, grinning.

Maya groans. "Don't encourage her. She _will_ try to combine the two." She flops backwards on the bed and it bounces slightly. "I love her, but I'm not ready to deal with that much secondhand embarrassment."

"Firsthand embarrassment," he corrects. "You know you're going to cave and do something with her."

Maya groans again, even louder. "She'll offer to be my human dummy, only because I'll refuse to let it happen the other way around." She pushes herself up on her elbows, mouth turned down and bottom lip pushed out, pouting. "I'm a terrible friend."

She's joking, but her forehead's creased the same way it is when she's scared to take a history test. "You're not. You're going to do it, and you're going to enjoy it."

"Am not."

"Are to."

She rolls her eyes. "I'm not embarrassed of Riley," Maya says, like she needs to clarify. She sits up straight and tugs at her jacket. 

"I never thought you were."

She watches him for another second and then confesses: "I'm afraid, if we do it, then I will be."

"You won't be, Maya."

"How do you know?" She bites at her bottom lip and looks at the ground. 

"Because you love her, even the embarrassing parts."

When she looks up at Lucas, her eyes are wide and she blinks a few times. She swallows and tilts her head. "You're really smart, you know that?"

"Thank you." He smiles. "Can I have that in writing?"

She shakes her head. "Not a chance, cowboy."

 

 

The sky is still dark purple. 

She pushes up the window, one eyebrow raised. "Aren't you supposed to be on your 'big date' with Riley?" She repeats Riley's phrasing sarcastically, copying the jazz hands Riley's been using all week. 

"That's over."

"The date?"

"Yeah, the date." He closes the window behind him. 

He feels listless and lonely, the date fizzling out after dinner at the sushi place where Riley tried everything before attempting to stealthily spit it into her napkin. It's just after 7:30, and his dad's in town, and so he came here. He doesn't need a reason anymore, and Maya stopped asking for one a long time ago, but this time he feels like he needs one, if only to make himself feel better.

He likes Riley; she's the right kind of weird, she makes him laugh and she's cute, but he doesn't think he _like_ -likes her. He doesn't feel a spark when he kisses her, and he thinks she feels the same way. Their relationship was flat and underwhelming almost from the get-go. At first he'd chalked it up to the newness of it all, of not knowing what to do and how dating was supposed to go, but now he thinks it's just them. If the polite excuse Riley had made about promising to read the next chapter of _Harry Potter_ to Auggie is any indication, he thinks she feels the same way. 

"Okay," Maya says. She picks up a glass of water sitting on her desk and takes a sip. "I was going to make popcorn."

"Don't let me stop you."

He follows her into the kitchen and helps grab the bag of popcorn from the top shelf when she goes up on her tiptoes, struggling to hook her finger into the box and pull it forward. "You didn't have to do that," she says. 

"You're welcome."

She rips off the plastic wrapping, unfolds the bag and sets it, right-side-up, into the microwave. 

"Do you like sushi?" he asks. 

Maya eyes him warily as the popcorn starts to jump. "You don't have leftover California rolls shoved in her pockets do you?"

"No," he laughs.

"Well," she starts, shrugging "I like some of it."

"We should go some time." She narrows her eyes and he clarifies: "All of us. Farkle, Riley, you and me."

"Oh." She presses her mouth together and tugs on her jacket. "Yeah. That could be fun."

"I think I could use your advice on what to order."

"Why? What did you order?" There's amusement lacing her voice, like she hopes it was something with eyes.

"Just a sample platter."

"She hated it, didn't she?" Maya smirks. 

" _Hated_ it. But she pretended not to."

"That's my girl." Maya scrunches up her nose and the microwave beeps. Lucas watches her take the bag out, hissing quietly as she pulls it open and dumps the popcorn into a giant yellow bowl. When she offers it to him, he pops a piece into his mouth. Butter gets on his finger and he looks around for a napkin but doesn't see any. 

Maya simply licks the butter off her thumb. "I would be concerned she's coming over here to complain about how you're the worst boyfriend ever, but even though she can sleep through the night now, I know she's too afraid to walk through my neighborhood alone in the dark."

"It's not that scary."

"I know." A sound comes from down the hall, and Lucas knows it's Maya's grandma. Maya tilts her head, bowl resting against her hip, and he gets up to follow her back to her bedroom. "You wanna watch a movie? I stole Farkle's netflix password."

"Sure."

He lets her pick some terrible horror film, lets her explain how stupid the music is because it's building fake suspense, and only makes fun of her a little when she jumps after the heroine screams midway through.

 

 

He breaks up with Riley, but it's more a mutual thing. 

It's almost a week after when he goes over to Maya's. Lucas knows she slept over at Riley's the Friday and Saturday after it happened, that they ate too much ice cream and watched too many romantic comedies. He has a suspicion that no one cried about anything other than Meg Ryan meeting Tom Hanks in the park and at the top of the Empire State building, but he knows Maya wouldn't tell him even if he asked. 

"She's sad, you know? But I think she's mourning the loss of the fairytale more than anything. Her parents were each other's first crush, and she kind of hoped she'd end up with hers, too," Maya tells him. They're lying on her floor again, looking up at the ceiling. Her shoulder is pressed against his, and he can feel her, warm and solid next to him. 

In the summer her room is a few degrees hotter than it should be, a small fan whirring loudly in the corner doing little to assuage the heat. Her hair frizzes and curls tighter, and he can feel it tickling his neck. "Yeah."

"She'll be fine." Maya reaches out and grabs his hand, squeezes. 

"I know. She deserves the world."

"She does." There's a smile audibly in Maya's voice, and even though he's trying to figure out if the cracks over her bed look like a cat or a two people dancing, he can picture the way her nose wrinkles. 

"You do, too."

She doesn't say anything to that, just squeezes his hand one more time before dropping it. The sun is starting to set outside, and if Lucas tilts his head back he can see a sliver of pink fading into a dusky rose. The air feels thick and there's a weak headache pulsing in his temples. Her window's open, will remain that way until she goes to sleep, and the sounds of city outside are loud reminders that no matter how insular it feels in here, the world hasn't stopped. 

"My parents fight. A lot."

He turns his head when he feels Maya shift. She's looking at him, and she looks more vulnerable than he can ever recall her looking. 

"My dad's kind of an asshole. He spends a lot of time in Texas. He's got, um." Lucas exhales, shaky. "He's got a girlfriend there. A mistress? Jeez, that sounds so soap opera, doesn't it?" He waits a beat, but Maya's quiet except for her steady breathing. 

"My mom knows. It wears her down. She does so much for us, and he just. He doesn't care. He blames her for every little thing that goes wrong. He stepped on his reading glasses the other day because he'd knocked them off the coffee table, and then he yelled at her for it."

"That's why I came here the first night. To get away from it."

"Oh." Maya swallows. She rolls onto her side. "I know it'll sound lame if I say I'm sorry, but I'm sorry."

She leans her forehead against his shoulder and he can feel her eyelashes fluttering against the skin there. 

"It's not lame."

"You don't have to lie to me, Lucas," she whispers. Her voice is wet. 

"I'm not."

He brushes a hand over her head and closes his eyes. 

He falls asleep, wakes up to a dark room, Maya's face illuminated by the glow of her old laptop where it's perched over her knees. He blinks a few times to clear his vision. The clock in the corner reads 10:11. When he tells her he should go home, she offers to walk him. He insists she doesn't have to, and she eventually agrees despite being annoyingly stubborn about it. He hugs her goodbye, finds comfort in the familiar way she stands on her tiptoes in order to tuck her chin over his shoulder, even if the way she breathes against his neck is new. 

 

 

Something sits heavy in the pit of his stomach the night before their first homecoming. He walks to Maya's apartment building, and when he looks up, he sees the unmistakable shape of Farkle on the fire escape, leaning in, elbows probably on the window's ledge. It's hard to see, but Lucas can tell that there are two people inside -- Maya and Riley, he knows. 

He doesn't go up. 

It doesn't feel right.

It feels like it'd be revealing something Lucas wants to keep just theirs, something just for Maya and just for him. 

 

 

Snow blankets the city, falling in large flakes outside Maya's window. Lucas sits on her bed, her feet in his lap as she tells a story about how she totally destroyed Missy in dodgeball today. 

They don't have gym together anymore, but he likes her stories. Sometimes Lucas thinks Maya's embellishing a bit, but he knows she's got excellent hand-eye coordination and a temper that can flare up -- thankfully it's only been seriously directed at him a handful of times. Maya may be small, but she can be scary, and she can needle at you in ways that hurt when she wants to, especially when she's been hurt herself. 

"And I thought about hitting her in the head. I seriously did. But I wanted to win more than I wanted to get disqualified."

"And you won," Lucas finishes for her. 

"Duh." She rolls her eyes and smiles in a way that lights up her entire face. "Tomorrow's our last day playing dodgeball, and I'm going to make her wish she was never born. She's gonna know exactly who hit her."

"I think you mean--"

"She's gonna know it was me," Maya cuts him off.

"Right." He wraps his hand around her ankle and yanks gently. She's wearing striped fuzzy socks that he knows were a present from Riley, and when he runs his hand over the material it's soft as sheep. Maya wiggles her toes. "I don't know if I should say I'm proud of you, but I am."

"Of course you are." She flips her hair and shoots him the smugest smile. 

She's ridiculous. 

Lucas likes her so much. 

"I would totally kick your ass," she says. 

He kneads at her ankle, works his hand up her calf, and Maya pulls the sleeves of her sweatshirt over her palms. "I wouldn't bet on it."

"We'll settle this eventually," her voice lilts ominously and she scoots closer, bending her legs at the knees so she's sitting right in front of him. 

"If you insist."

"Oh, I insist." She wiggles her eyebrows. "You're going to go into it feeling so confident just because you play sports, but let me tell you, Campfire Dave, I don't mess around."

"What do I get if I win?" he asks. He runs his hands over her shins and rests them on her knees, folding his fingers together. Her eyes are wide and blue and her lips are red and he can feel her in his stomach, fluttering and twisting, and he almost hates it more than he likes it. Almost. 

Maya shrugs. "I don't know." She leans forward and places her hands on top of his. "If I win, I want you to wait on me hand and foot for a week."

He raises an eyebrow. "Really?"

"And you can't complain at all. Even to Farkle."

"You're ridiculous."

"Please," she scoffs. "You like it."

He can't find it in himself to disagree, and the flustered look on her face is more than worth it. 

 

 

The night before he leaves to spend spring break in Texas is the night he crawls into her window after 9 and the night she crawls out her window after him at 11. 

The air is cool and there's a nice breeze despite the fact that it brings the smell of fish and garbage with it. 

He looks both ways at the crosswalk because the red hand is up, but Maya keeps walking -- because she's a New Yorker, because it's late, and they'll still be in her neighborhood for a couple more blocks. She walks with purpose and without fear and Lucas follows her even if he's told her a thousand times that she should really wait for the little person that indicates it's safe to cross. 

"You walk slow," she says when he catches up with her.

"Do you even know where you're going?"

"Does it matter?" She taps his wrist with the back of her hand and he catches it, slips his hand in hers. 

"Not really."

"Good." She nods.

They go to the park and walk around. They can't see the stars, and normally Lucas would mind, but Maya's hand is warm and soft in his, and he can't muster up enough disappointment to complain. She talks about going to Florida with the Matthews and how she's excited to visit Disney World and swim in the ocean. She says there's no chlorine in the ocean so there's no risk of her hair turning green like it did the summer before high school.

Lucas kisses her outside his building, her back against the brick. But her hands are on his jacket and she's the one who pulled him in. Her mouth is soft and she tastes sweet and a little like a sugary cereal he can't remember the name of because she's nipping gently at his bottom lip. At one time, he would have been surprised at how gentle she can be. But now he knows her better.

"I trust you," she says when they break apart, their foreheads still touching, her hands still clutching at his jacket. 

He knows that means more to her than almost anything. "Thank you." 

He presses his mouth to hers again, soft and chaste. 

He watches her start the walk home and smiles when she look back at him to say, "Call me," in that sarcastic way of hers. 

 

 

"If I had to crawl through anyone's window, I'm glad I picked yours," he tells her. 

"Cool it, cowboy."

She kisses him, and he likes that he still can't catch his breath.


End file.
